In this episode, I talk with CEO Paul Lambert of startup Quilt, which came out of stealth this week with heat pumps that are not ugly. They perform well too, and are easy to buy and install, but mostly they’re not ugly.
Nice to have a HP with the "Dwell Mag" look. Most everything said is reasonable. Good specs. Though I wouldn't dis' ducted systems so much. Many crappy duct systems can be made to perform fairly well, and get losses down almost to zero, not 30%, but yeah that can get into a bit of bespoke work. Sounds like David needs a home performance contractor before any other kinds of heating equipment upgrades.
EfficiencyMaine actually has followed the "prix fixe" model for these split system HP installations of various kinds from various contractors.
Weird to hear complaints of "dry air" from HPs. Compared to what? That's always been the complaint about ducted gas furnaces. Any heated air is relatively dry in the winter. But in a well-sealed house with a good duct system or mini-splits it shouldn't be an issue unless heated air is blown directly on occupants. My gas furnace-heated 30 year old house maintains 30% RH almost down 0F in dry Colorado, w/o humidification, except by occupants and activities. RH might go up a bit with mini-splits, avoiding some of the leakage-induced, or pressure-induced infiltration typical of furnaces, but a ducted HP shouldn't change it vs. ducted furnace.
I'm glad some have already brought up aspects of RH. It was one of the bigger issues I had to work through when replacing my fossil gas furnace with a heat pump a year ago. As background, I'm a clean energy enthusiast, not a professional, having my heat pump installed in central NC (USDA Hardiness Zone 8a, generally high humidity outdoors).
I started with an energy consultant to get an independent read on the compatibility of my ducts for a ducted heat pump and the size of system needed. Based on an energy audit 15 yrs ago, we sealed our crawlspace (making it part of the conditioned envelope) rather than insulating the ducts. He concluded that our current 22 yr/old AC/furnace combo was oversized at 5 tons--3 tons would do fine. Combined with the single speed circulation fan, it meant the current system would short cycle, 'wooshing' all day. The big surprise was him recommending getting rid of the whole house humidifier (which we ran in the winter) and, instead install a whole house dehumidifier. He indicated that heat pumps performed poorly in the high humidity South.
The contractor I went with also strongly encouraged a whole house dehumidifier, which added 25% to the total cost (not insignificant). The end system, a relatively high end Mitshubishi/Trane heat pump with variable speed circulation fan is whisper quiet inside, pretty darn quiet outside the house (much quieter than my old A/C unit), and keeps the house very comfortable. Let's face it, it is a much longer ramp up to change temperature more than a couple of degrees, but with the energy cost savings, there's much less pressure to ratchet the thermostat up or down every time you leave the house. RH sits at about 60% in the summer and 50% in the winter--just fine. It's worth noting it was the city inspector who pushed back hard on me not including backup resistance heat with the system, though he did eventually sign off on the job.
Getting back to the podcast, you touched on RH a bit, but not in any real depth. I'm seeing essentially no discussion of this anywhere online and it seems to be a big (and costly) deal in the humid South. While Quilt is clearly all in on ductless systems, I can certainly report my ducted system (replacing a fossil gas and oil burning furnace before that) is performing great. One more item not touched on in the podcast but was a semi-major hassle for me: claiming tax credits under the IRA. Installing my system in 2023, I could only claim federal credits since NC had not implemented their state-level rebates yet. My contractor could not provide me with a CEE Tier 1 certification and I, instead, had to manually calculate it from hard to locate system specs online. My CPA then proceeded to incorrectly fill out IRS Form 5695--luckily I had researched the info sheet better than they had. Energy.gov and CEE web pages were only minimally helpful at the time.
Sorry, this went on long. Hopefully it will be useful to other clean energy nerds out there. Keep doing great podcasts!
The "second head costs as much again" deal is just weird. The company seems to think they are Apple or Tesla, I think - premium product, very kewwwl, so just ignore the price tag.
I just got lost when Dave said his place would be $31K and the guy did not come back with "no, you've wildly overestimated". He is getting precisely nowhere with his "3X, sure, but worth it" argument.
There won't be a big switch until its cheaper than that.
I think these numbers are reasonable when you're looking at dropping $35k on a $3M row house in SF. I would love to see this technology go beyond the 1%ers though.
Just got a quote from a local HVAC contractor for installing units in three rooms - $13.5K. The quote for three rooms on Quilt.com is $19.5K. Yes, the Quilt indoor heads have a sleeker and more modern appearance, but that's a huge price difference for essentially the same product.
I ended up installing a MRCOOL three head unit myself for $3.5K. I'm totally convinced mini splits make a lot of sense, but unless the prices come down, it's hard to see widespread adaption by the average consumer.
Two comments on the content, I love heat pumps and they are outselling gas furnaces now. Heat pump heating and heat pump water heating are heavily encouraged by the WA state energy code.
1. Refrigerant leakage can be high. Leakage is highest in site-built piping, as joints leak a bit on day 1, and then much more later. (refrigerants fully contained within equipment leak much less) Residential split system heat pumps units have site built piping, but I really don't know how often homeowners or service-people need to top off the system with new refrigerants (due to leakage).
ASHRAE 228 and other orgs have expected refrigerant leakage of systems by type.
2. Nearly all homes in the US have A/C (central, distributed, or the through-window units). Western WA is one of the few places in the US where it wasn't standard in new buildings until recently. So the economics of replacing a heating-only fossil appliance with a heat pump that inherently has heating and cooling can be deceiving. Our 'new normal' summer smoke season and the occasional heat dome mean means more people want or need A/C here.
@drvolts - the fact that your furnace sounds like a jet engine likely has to do with the fact that you have high duct static pressure. A well tuned ducted system can be a very efficient way to heat / cool a home, and doesn't need to be loud. If it's loud, then it is likely a poor install.
does this approach suggest that it can react to the rooms that are actually occupied, and just direct work to raise/lower temp in the places where people are? re-reading..
Yes, but as the guest noted you really don't do it *much*. And the reason for that is because high end heat pumps are variable speed now. So they are most efficient operating at a low rate and just adding as much heat to the room as it it's losing on a very constant basis.
Also, for air conditioning, you really really want to be running long enough to dehumidify the space. So it's almost always better to just keep running.
This is also where this vendors multi-head design starts to fall down. If you look at Energy Vanguard Allison Bailes, who is really good on this stuff, or Green Building Advisor QA pages, you'll find out that in general a lot of heads in small rooms operate less efficiently and with less comfort. That's not a technology failing, that's a design failing. With an 18K outside unit and two 9K outdoor like Quilt is doing, you can do smaller rooms.....but only within reason. I've got two bedrooms even 9K is too big for.
Thanks for the recommendation on Allison Bailes. Reading a bit, his blog looks interesting too-- here's a relevant post for this conversation, https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/heat-pump-basics/. @drvolts he might be an interesting guest on a future podcast to talk more about installing heat pumps in ducted houses and the design considerations for really doing that well.
Nice to have a HP with the "Dwell Mag" look. Most everything said is reasonable. Good specs. Though I wouldn't dis' ducted systems so much. Many crappy duct systems can be made to perform fairly well, and get losses down almost to zero, not 30%, but yeah that can get into a bit of bespoke work. Sounds like David needs a home performance contractor before any other kinds of heating equipment upgrades.
EfficiencyMaine actually has followed the "prix fixe" model for these split system HP installations of various kinds from various contractors.
Weird to hear complaints of "dry air" from HPs. Compared to what? That's always been the complaint about ducted gas furnaces. Any heated air is relatively dry in the winter. But in a well-sealed house with a good duct system or mini-splits it shouldn't be an issue unless heated air is blown directly on occupants. My gas furnace-heated 30 year old house maintains 30% RH almost down 0F in dry Colorado, w/o humidification, except by occupants and activities. RH might go up a bit with mini-splits, avoiding some of the leakage-induced, or pressure-induced infiltration typical of furnaces, but a ducted HP shouldn't change it vs. ducted furnace.
I'm glad some have already brought up aspects of RH. It was one of the bigger issues I had to work through when replacing my fossil gas furnace with a heat pump a year ago. As background, I'm a clean energy enthusiast, not a professional, having my heat pump installed in central NC (USDA Hardiness Zone 8a, generally high humidity outdoors).
I started with an energy consultant to get an independent read on the compatibility of my ducts for a ducted heat pump and the size of system needed. Based on an energy audit 15 yrs ago, we sealed our crawlspace (making it part of the conditioned envelope) rather than insulating the ducts. He concluded that our current 22 yr/old AC/furnace combo was oversized at 5 tons--3 tons would do fine. Combined with the single speed circulation fan, it meant the current system would short cycle, 'wooshing' all day. The big surprise was him recommending getting rid of the whole house humidifier (which we ran in the winter) and, instead install a whole house dehumidifier. He indicated that heat pumps performed poorly in the high humidity South.
The contractor I went with also strongly encouraged a whole house dehumidifier, which added 25% to the total cost (not insignificant). The end system, a relatively high end Mitshubishi/Trane heat pump with variable speed circulation fan is whisper quiet inside, pretty darn quiet outside the house (much quieter than my old A/C unit), and keeps the house very comfortable. Let's face it, it is a much longer ramp up to change temperature more than a couple of degrees, but with the energy cost savings, there's much less pressure to ratchet the thermostat up or down every time you leave the house. RH sits at about 60% in the summer and 50% in the winter--just fine. It's worth noting it was the city inspector who pushed back hard on me not including backup resistance heat with the system, though he did eventually sign off on the job.
Getting back to the podcast, you touched on RH a bit, but not in any real depth. I'm seeing essentially no discussion of this anywhere online and it seems to be a big (and costly) deal in the humid South. While Quilt is clearly all in on ductless systems, I can certainly report my ducted system (replacing a fossil gas and oil burning furnace before that) is performing great. One more item not touched on in the podcast but was a semi-major hassle for me: claiming tax credits under the IRA. Installing my system in 2023, I could only claim federal credits since NC had not implemented their state-level rebates yet. My contractor could not provide me with a CEE Tier 1 certification and I, instead, had to manually calculate it from hard to locate system specs online. My CPA then proceeded to incorrectly fill out IRS Form 5695--luckily I had researched the info sheet better than they had. Energy.gov and CEE web pages were only minimally helpful at the time.
Sorry, this went on long. Hopefully it will be useful to other clean energy nerds out there. Keep doing great podcasts!
The "second head costs as much again" deal is just weird. The company seems to think they are Apple or Tesla, I think - premium product, very kewwwl, so just ignore the price tag.
I just got lost when Dave said his place would be $31K and the guy did not come back with "no, you've wildly overestimated". He is getting precisely nowhere with his "3X, sure, but worth it" argument.
There won't be a big switch until its cheaper than that.
I think these numbers are reasonable when you're looking at dropping $35k on a $3M row house in SF. I would love to see this technology go beyond the 1%ers though.
Just got a quote from a local HVAC contractor for installing units in three rooms - $13.5K. The quote for three rooms on Quilt.com is $19.5K. Yes, the Quilt indoor heads have a sleeker and more modern appearance, but that's a huge price difference for essentially the same product.
I ended up installing a MRCOOL three head unit myself for $3.5K. I'm totally convinced mini splits make a lot of sense, but unless the prices come down, it's hard to see widespread adaption by the average consumer.
Two comments on the content, I love heat pumps and they are outselling gas furnaces now. Heat pump heating and heat pump water heating are heavily encouraged by the WA state energy code.
1. Refrigerant leakage can be high. Leakage is highest in site-built piping, as joints leak a bit on day 1, and then much more later. (refrigerants fully contained within equipment leak much less) Residential split system heat pumps units have site built piping, but I really don't know how often homeowners or service-people need to top off the system with new refrigerants (due to leakage).
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/OSE/Building%20Energy/SEA_Refrigerant_Analysis_May2020.pdf
ASHRAE 228 and other orgs have expected refrigerant leakage of systems by type.
2. Nearly all homes in the US have A/C (central, distributed, or the through-window units). Western WA is one of the few places in the US where it wasn't standard in new buildings until recently. So the economics of replacing a heating-only fossil appliance with a heat pump that inherently has heating and cooling can be deceiving. Our 'new normal' summer smoke season and the occasional heat dome mean means more people want or need A/C here.
My partner complains about how much I talk about heat pumps already. Rolls her eyes any time someone mentions them.
[chanting] One of us! One of us!
Great discussion, but Dave, what’s your plan for making the switch from methane furnace to electric heat pump?
Very insightful as always! Great work.
@drvolts - the fact that your furnace sounds like a jet engine likely has to do with the fact that you have high duct static pressure. A well tuned ducted system can be a very efficient way to heat / cool a home, and doesn't need to be loud. If it's loud, then it is likely a poor install.
Maybe so, but I think it also has to do with the fact that my furnace is in a closet in my office, literally 5-6 feet away from where I work.
A combo of factors then. Bummer. I’m guessing it’s also just a single speed so the cycling on/ off is startling? I find that to be the case as well
does this approach suggest that it can react to the rooms that are actually occupied, and just direct work to raise/lower temp in the places where people are? re-reading..
Yes, but as the guest noted you really don't do it *much*. And the reason for that is because high end heat pumps are variable speed now. So they are most efficient operating at a low rate and just adding as much heat to the room as it it's losing on a very constant basis.
Also, for air conditioning, you really really want to be running long enough to dehumidify the space. So it's almost always better to just keep running.
This is also where this vendors multi-head design starts to fall down. If you look at Energy Vanguard Allison Bailes, who is really good on this stuff, or Green Building Advisor QA pages, you'll find out that in general a lot of heads in small rooms operate less efficiently and with less comfort. That's not a technology failing, that's a design failing. With an 18K outside unit and two 9K outdoor like Quilt is doing, you can do smaller rooms.....but only within reason. I've got two bedrooms even 9K is too big for.
Thanks for the recommendation on Allison Bailes. Reading a bit, his blog looks interesting too-- here's a relevant post for this conversation, https://www.energyvanguard.com/blog/heat-pump-basics/. @drvolts he might be an interesting guest on a future podcast to talk more about installing heat pumps in ducted houses and the design considerations for really doing that well.
Just saw this one and it looks super cool:
https://greenup.rmi.org calculator for green upgrades, including heat pumps.